Keota FFA makes community proud

2024 was another successful year for the Keota FFA. The chapter started the year off by celebrating National FFA Week in February. The chapter was represented by 10 members at Sub-District contests in Oskaloosa. Every contest received gold ratings and advanced to District Convention which was attended by 13 members. In April, Mr. Jamison took 10 FFA members to Ames for the 2024 FFA State Convention, where we competed in a variety of contests and events. April brought our chapter’s first national contest in nine years, and first-ever trip to the National Land Evaluation contest. Members on this National Team included Brody Greiner, Aiden McGuire, Gavin Sieren, Isaac Striegel, and Jax Weber. The month of May entailed the Annual Spring Awards Banquet.

Officers for the 2024-25 school year were elected as listed: President — Ava Greiner, Vice President- Jax Weber, Secretary — Grace Conger, Reporter: Isaac Striegel, Treasurer- Gavin Sieren, and Sentinel- Izzi Chalupa. July & August were busy with members exhibiting their projects at the Washington County Fair, the Keokuk County Expo and the great Iowa State Fair.

With the new school year starting, Mr. Jamison began preparing the soils team for the upcoming soils contests in September. The team’s first contest was the Quad County Contest, where they placed first. Next the team traveled to Muscatine for the district contest. Here the team placed 1st again and earned a trip to the State Soil Contest.

At the State Soil Contest our team finished 1st and were named State Champions. This earned them a trip to Nationals this coming spring. The next trip, nine members took was to Indianapolis to attend National FFA Convention. At National Convention members, Reese Conrad and Gavin Sieren were honored on stage for being National Finalist with their Agriscience Fair Project.

As we enter into the new year, members are working hard to prepare for Sub-District contest and National FFA Week. Mr. Jamison had this to say about the past year, “2024 will be a hard year to beat for the Keota FFA, we were highly represented on the local, state, and national level in a variety of contests and events. I'm confident that we made our community and alumni proud as we continued to build on the legacy of the Keota FFA.”